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Other than that, I really hope for Improved Diplomacy, better Diplomatic Victory conditions, better use of Bonus Resources (coupled to Coorporations) and more unique units/buildings so that each civ has at least 2 UU and 1 UB/UI.

I also think an unrest/revolution system would be very welcome. In order to achieve difficulty the AI gets bonus that has what I consider undesirable side effects. The city spam has been kind of pronounced in my games lately and the happiness bonus they get prevents any realistic check and balance. Events and a form of health also need to be back in. The dynamism is very lost now and the game seems to get locked in its pattern early on without too many stunning upsets. I would like to see a dark age mechanic that destroys infrastructure and such forcing a rebuilding, with probably easier early production so you would get sort of a classical period with great cities then followed by a dreary era of reduced output an some rebuilding to do. Maybe Faith buildings could even play a role of 'preserving classical knowledge' and produce a science boost when you enter the renaissance

My number one hope would be a system that could potentially cripple a runaway player or AI. As AI has happiness bonuses it should be something unrelated to happiness.

Like expanding or conquering too fast would cause unrest and a city might break out into a new rebellious city-state that you could either try to conquer back or grant an "independence".

I don't know, adding features that essentially punishes the player (or AI) for playing well sort of defeats the purpose of having a strategy, which obviously is a bad thing for a strategy game. Espionage essentially is there already as a tool to punish anyone who's in advance (and look at how much fun that is(n't)). If you runaway from the AI too quickly, I guess you're supposed to up your difficulty level. If AI runs away from you, I guess you should lower it. If you run away from AI on diety, I guess you need to find a new game to play.

An expansion focused on colonization is the best opportunity to finally make the AI colonize oversea far away continents and islands. In the map (terra ?) where everybody starts on the same big continent ("old world") with one or two other empty continents with city states and unique resources one can only colonize after the Renaissance, there is absolutely no competition for the player. Most of the time, while the AI likes filling in every lame tundra hex in the old world, it just ignores the new world. Sometimes, in the Modern Era, an AI sends one settler to the New World. That's it.
It destroys completely the game experience of such maps, that should be about being the first to reach the New World and grab its resources. Moreover, I was really fund of, in Civ IV, the colonial wars. Renaissance units, but empty continent, with barbarians, like in the Ancient era...
My usual complaint about Civ V.

There are quite a few things "One World" could mean, which is really good for speculation...

I'm hoping for the Olympics...Everyone gets together peacefully for that in real life (for the most part anyway).

They better be improving the diplomacy, because it really still needs improvement. Take a look at the diplomacy options in the Total War games to get an idea of what they could add to Civ's diplomacy. If they don't add more to it then I really feel that they are ignoring our complaints..

Map trading would be nice, and kinda fits in with the title, but I want two kinds of map trading, and those are "World maps" and "Territory maps". World maps reveal the explored parts of the world to the other player/AI, but does not show them your territory, and the Territory maps only show your territory, so more personal. If CSs or Natural wonders are revealed on the traded map, the player/AI will still have to find them to have use of them.
Also, if you are the only person to have met a certain faraway AI or CS, I think it would be nice to trade contacts so you can allow a friend to see them...Maybe these things will be added to the game.

Visibility might be included too, such as being able to see a close friend's territory and units like you can your own - exactly like when you start the game on the same team as another player/AI and you can see their progress. This would be a big deal, and the AI would not easily accept this deal, but when they become close friends of yours then they might, although this would be ideal with other human players. I can think of coordinated invasions that this would have helped a immensely with!

Someone else suggested airports and air dropping, which makes sense too, and I would expect to see it for sure.

Oh, and what new civs we might see? I'm hoping for the Sioux, Zulu, Javanese, Assyrians, and the Kongo. I expect to see Portugal and maybe Vietnam (and again the Zulu of course!)...Together that makes 7, and there was 9 in the previous expansion, so I'd say there is a fair chance for all of them.

Do you have Gods & Kings? Now expansionist and naval civs make colonies nicely all over the world. Haven't played terra but at least on other maps I've played.

I do have Gods & Kings. Indeed, I have seen AI colonize oversea, but not in Terra maps. They do so in small continents maps, where the continents are linked with coastal water hexes. Or they sometimes plant their settler at the extreme opposite of their starting place, but on their home continent.
In Terra maps, where the two continental bulks are far over one from each other, they don't do so. I've tried several times (King difficulty), and even chose as opponents only the most naval-inclined civs (Turks, Britain, Netherlands...), and they don't expand oversea, at least until very late in the game, and provided the other continent is not too far from their empire. Which means that I've no competition in exploring the New World.

I'd want friendships to become a little more stable than they are in the game right now. I'd like to see it become a little easier to establish bonds with an AI - alliances against a third party and recurring trade agreements should be worth more as they indicate a long-lasting positive relationship. I think betrayal is an important part of diplomacy in Civ 5, but I want it to be a threat rather than an inevitability.

I'd also like CS's to become a deeper gameplay mechanism. In G&K, they greatly improved one side of the equation by giving us more quests. Now, I'd like to see them address the other side: rather than simply giving us a boost to influence points, create quests that have other rewards or effects. When Lhasa starts work on a project and the player assists, perhaps it results in an improvement to the CS's output - +2 culture, for example. Other quests could slow the rate at which the player's influence degrades, or increase the rate at which it degrades for other civs. Rather than having CS's automatically declare war when the player or AI does, have them give you a quest instead - if you provide them with, say, 500 gold (this number might change depending on the era) then they'll declare war and actively engage the enemy. I think they've only scratched the surface with the CS mechanism, and there are lots of ways that they can make them a more interesting part of the game.

Well this is definitely possibly a potential reason to consider getting somewhat excited about the game should the stars align and give us the expansion.

I think that if they really beefed up diplomacy this game, for me, then surpasses Civ IV. The addition of the Zulus, which would have to come I would think, I mean it's not Civ without them, would be icing on the cake.

I'm pretty sure the Zulu are the most likely civ we will see, and expansions have always released a bunch of new civs together, so I'd say it's going to happen...I mean we were all astounded that the Zulu were not in Gods & Kings.

I posted this in the other thread, but in case you all aren't checking there anymore, I wrote up a small blurb for GameSpy bringing this rumor to light. Maybe it will knock some official information loose.

If they don't fix diplomacy in this so called "upcoming expansion" it will be such a shame. I can't play the game without getting attacked by one civ in the first 75-100 turns.

No matter if I have an embassy, open borders, I traded with that civ, if it's the Aztecs or another warlike civ and you're near it and it says "they covet for your territory" or something like that, they'll declare war.

So many huge patches, an expansion and you still get attacked for being near another civ, it's so annoying and frustrating.
This is such a shame because I like Civ V more then Civ IV especially with they new combat, hexes and the uniqueness of each civ.

The diplo AI shouldn't necessarily be "smarter", but give the play more transparency, because this is where Civ IV is "better", not that it's particulary "smarter". In civ IV if you refused to trade with a civ for a few times it would've declared war on you.

If they'll add more transparency, so you could ask a civ what it "thinks" about another one it will be a big improvement.
Of course an expansion would add much more stuff.